Kitty Pryde
Hasbro released Kitty Pryde as figure number 17 in their second series of Marvel Universe figures. At this point, it is no surprise that she uses the same female body we have seen before, and it is becoming increasingly evident that there is a need to add more variety into the line, at least as far as female characters are concerned.
Kitty Pryde is one of the youngest mutants in the X-Men comics franchise. I have not read a story with her in it in quite a while, but the character doesn’t seem to have grown up past her late teens in a long while, as is customary for fiction characters. This means that in the comics she is never depicted as particularly sexy or voluptuous, which in turn brings us to the main complain I have with this Marvel Universe release.
The only unique piece on Kitty is the head, which has the hair glued on as a separate rubber wig. The face is surprisingly different, as it doesn’t have the generic pretty look Hasbro gives to most female action figures. She looks fairly young and kind of resembles a slightly plump Hermione Granger, more so because the hairpiece looks slightly puffy and tangled. The look of the face sharply contrasts with the way too chesty MU female body, a trait that is only enhanced by her costume design.
Since Kitty uses the basic female body mold, her articulation model remains unchanged although with a new limitation:
• Ball jointed neck. It has a very limited range due to the hair.
• Peg & hinge shoulders.
• Hinged elbows.
• Swivel wrists.
• Swivel waist.
• Ball mounted torso.
• Ball jointed hips (G.I. Joe style).
• Double jointed knees.
• Peg & hinge ankles.
Kitty’s body is molded in black colored plastic with her costume design painted on in golden yellow. The paint application is quite neat and the coverage of the yellow over the black is extremely nice. Furthermore, the yellow sections on her have some shading applied that helps in adding definition to the shape of the figure.
The hair is simply painted in a mid brown hue, with a little paint wash added for shading. The face paint apps are OK, although I noticed that a lot of Kitty figures had issues with the paint apps on the left eye; this seems to have been corrected in later shipments of this figure. To be on the safe side this is a figure that should be bought in person instead of ordering sight unseen.
During her time as a member of the X-Calibur team, Kitty came across the tiny purple dragon Lockheed. This small critter is included with her as a one-piece rubber accessory.
Lockheed seems to be painted purple instead of cast in the appropriate color, and given a paint wash to enhance the textures. It also has two tiny golden dots of paint on the eyes, even though that doesn’t show in the pictures. The other extras included are Kitty’s HAMMER file and personalized display base.
At this point, I would be hard pressed to simply recommend this figure to anyone, mostly because she’s nothing we haven’t seen before in this line, and all she really has going for her is a dragon pet and a neat paintjob. I like having these repaints and variations of the basic MU female body, but that is part of my particular OCD. MU Kitty Pryde is still a pretty decent toy, and should not disappoint anyone as long as expectations are kept in check.
Errex Score: 80/100
Category: Featured, Marvel, Toy Reviews
The Lockheed almost sold me on getting this one.
Great Stuff Errex!